


Firm but Fair

by marsakat



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, Alternative Universe- Heathens Music Video, Angst, Hallucinations, Heathens, M/M, Self-Destruction, Suicidal Thoughts, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-16 22:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7287739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marsakat/pseuds/marsakat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyler knows his crime, and takes his punishment readily.  He just doesn't remember how it happened.  Except gasoline and blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Firm but Fair

**Author's Note:**

> Woke up with this story in my head, not actually the longer Heathens fic I have in process.

He deserves to be here.

Deserved to be shoved to the ground, roughed up by the cops as they arrest him. The scratches on his face, bruises on his limbs are punishment for what he’d done. Penance.  He tried to run because that’s what was expected, but Tyler wanted to be castigated for what he’d done.  He didn’t mean it, he screamed to himself over the roar of the airplane, but that didn’t erase his crimes.

God, he doesn’t even remember why or how it happened, he just knows it did.

_Gasoline on his hands_

_Blood on his hands_

_Shaking_

_Screams_

_His own, in response to the ones that weren’t his_

_He silenced them_

_Oh Lord, he silenced the screams_

Mustn’t think about them.

_Can you save my?_

Stop it. Stop it. Stopitstopitstopit.

You know what you did.

There was gasoline on his hands, and blood.  Not his blood.  He was sorry it wasn’t.  Tyler slipped into a hole in his mind, letting the guards guide him to where he will spend the rest of his life.  No more sunshine for Tyler.

Tyler Joseph killed the sun.

He wouldn’t sleep, until his body was overwhelmed and slipped into unconsciousness.  After spending uncounted hours in a land where his mind was free to attack him unprotected, Tyler decided the tortures his mind dealt were enough a punishment that sleep would be welcomed.

He was forced to eat, dragged into the yard to get fresh air, put into group therapy, but Tyler fought them.  _They_ want him to reform, but he’s not here to change.  He’s here to pay.

Tyler Joseph killed the sun.

Tyler Joseph killed Josh Dun.

See? Even the thought of him brought light to Tyler’s dark cell.  _He broke all the lights.  They kept trying to fix them but he’ll keep breaking them_.  Tyler wouldn’t talk, he refused, but he woke screaming so often that they’d spray water at him to stop.  Josh was the only good thing in his life and he ruined it.

Tyler would lie for hours trying to remember how he’d done it, sure that the memory was hiding as one last, final torment when he’d think he was done with contrition.  Maybe he had to die first?  So he found the biggest guy in the yard and called him bad, bad words Tyler would never have said. 

He woke up on suicide watch—apparently his state of mind was obvious.  But he woke up.

This prison only had visitors come once a month.  Tyler refused all phone calls, and threw away the letters without even stopping to examine the handwriting on the envelopes.  His family and friends would do better to forget him, let him rot. 

That didn’t stop the letters from coming.

That didn’t stop the security guard from stopping at his cell on those days, telling him he had a visitor.  Tyler would cover his head with a blanket and refuse to eat.  The guards weren’t fazed by him—used to even sicker people, certainly.  Tyler wouldn’t be so pretentious to presume he was the worst one here.  But that wouldn’t absolve him of his sins.

If he strained his ears enough, he could imagine his heartbeat to be drumbeats.

He could pretend there was a world where Josh was still alive.  Still smiling somewhere, laughing and better off that Tyler wasn’t in his life. 

That was peace for Tyler.  He’d get all floaty and forget his self-flagellation, ending up _with_ other people, _eating_ , _talking, singing, writing, drawing_. He pictured Josh on a beach, his fluff-pink-straw-hair blowing in the strong breeze, and sunshine on his arms.

Tyler would pick up the phone sometimes and hear his voice.  _Home and warm and_ radiance.

Tyler went to see the vigilant visitor, wondering who was so eager to see him.  He prayed it was someone to yell at him.  To finally tell him the gory details of his crime with hate in their eyes and venom in their words.

He marched in line with the other prisoners, but fell to the ground as the world tried to swallow him in the smile of a dead man’s face.

“No! No!  You’re not here.”

The guards leapt on him, dragging him to his feet as the impossible visitor stood, half hovering and unsure whether or not to approach.  Tyler let himself be taken and forced into a chair.  He couldn’t look at this vision, wasn’t worthy to meet the glowing eyes.

“Tyler?”

“Not real.”

“Tyler, please look at me.”

If that was what it wanted, he would listen. 

Josh was as beautiful as he remembered and he lost all the oxygen in his lungs.  His fingers itched to touch, but they just twitched in his lap. 

“I’m glad you decided to come today.”

Tyler nodded.  Maybe Josh himself would tell him how he was murdered.  Fitting.

“I miss—”

“Don’t,” Tyler cut Josh off with a raspy, cracked voice.

“Sorry.”

“No, I am.”

“I’m not mad at you.  I know you weren’t in a good place, but it’s going to be okay.”

“Don’t tell me it’s okay, when I—when I,” Tyler finally looked away.  His head dropped.  He watched his itchy hands.  No blood.  No gasoline.  “You’re not real,” Tyler told Josh.

“Yes I am,” Josh bit his lip, like he always did when he was nervous.  It was so familiar, Tyler could cry.

“That’s what you would say.”

“Tyler, you’re going to get out of here one day, and we’ll fix it all.”

“I killed you.”

“No you didn’t.”

“You died.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry!” Tyler’s voice raised to a scream, “I killed you! You’re not here.  You’re decaying in the ground.  Dead!”

The guards were closing in, and Josh looked terrified, backing away as if Tyler would strike him a fatal blow again.

“I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  I love you.  I’m sorry.”

“I’m not dead! I’m here,” the ghost lied.

“Leave me alone!” _don’t leave me_

It’d repeat every month.  Stubbornly ‘Josh’ would come to the prison and insist he was alive.  He tried grabbing Tyler’s hands but Tyler would dodge them.  He wanted to show a pulse, the heart beat still pushing blood around a living body.  Blood that hadn’t all leaked out as Tyler ?shot ?stabbed him.  Josh was waiting for him.

Waiting for Tyler to listen.

_Arson_

_Not murder_

_Please Tyler, please._

_You don’t deserve this_

_We can fix it_

I’m real.

I’m alive.

 

**Author's Note:**

> title is actually from the video itself. One of the first interior shots "FIRM BUT FAIR" is written in between the floors of the prison.
> 
> prompt me @ teeentyonepilots on tumblr. my main is shivermepickles.
> 
> god i love the heathens!verse. y'all know I'll be writing more for this


End file.
